Interludes
by Not A Droid
Summary: This takes place during Season 3. After the Johnny McHale case "True Night" Reid and Emily have a series of sexual encounters. Will they lead to something serious or are they just interludes?
1. True Night

_Disclaimer: as always, I own nothing, no copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N: This is another fic I'm writing as I'm going through old CM episodes trying to cure my writer's block for my current fics. This one is going to be a short fic, only 4 or 5 chapters. It starts with the Season 3 episode "True Night" and ends with the 2-part episode Lo-Fi/Mayhem. This is a straight-up Reid/Prentiss pairing. _

* * *

As Emily Prentiss sat at her desk in the bullpen of the BAU offices, she kept thinking about Johnny McHale.

She just couldn't stop thinking about how he was a normal guy once. But after a gang brutally killed his fiancé, he became an unsub; taking his revenge by brutally killing them. He wasn't a really bad guy, not in the beginning, anyway.

Understanding that suggested a disturbing question for Emily. _Given what happened to Johnny, what's to prevent anyone from becoming an unsub?_

She shared her concern with Dave Rossi. All he could think to say was,"Life is a hell of thing to happen to people."That gave her no comfort. So, she sat at her desk, pretending to work, hoping a comforting insight would come to her. She was so deeply lost in thought that she didn't realize someone was standing behind her.

"Um...Emily?"

"What?" It came out in a harsh, irritated tone. She looked up scowling at ...Spencer Reid. "I'm sorry," she apologized immediately.

"It's just everyone else is gone."

She looked around and saw he was right.

"I guess I was just deep in thought." She said.

"Yeah. So, I was wondering if you'd like to get some coffee."

"Coffee?"

"Well, coffee that wasn't made in a law enforcement coffee pot. I'm guessing you working away because you're not ready to go home."

For a brief moment she thought about telling him exactly why she wasn't ready to go home yet, but decided against it. "Yeah, I'm not ready to go home yet."

"Me either. So, how about getting some decent coffee?"

Emily thought about it. What was the harm?

"Sure, why not?"

* * *

Forty-five minutes later they were sitting down in a coffee shop in Georgetown drinking coffee when Reid asked," So, are you having the nightmares yet?"

Emily was sipping her coffee when he asked, and the question took her so off-guard that she spewed out the coffee.

"What?"

"I was just wondering if you were having nightmares." Reid said calmly.

"Who the hell starts a conversation like that?"

"I wasn't starting a conversation, just a new topic."

"You know what I mean. Why would you even ask me a question like that?"

"I saw you in the bullpen."

"So?"

"You were pretending to work."

"I was working."

"You opened a bunch of unrelated files on you desk and hoped no one noticed."

"What makes you think..." she didn't finish the question, because she remember how fast Reid could read. A quick glance of the files was all he would need to realize they were three unrelated cases.

"Even though one of them was upside down, I could still read them all. So, for some reason you don't want to go home. Now, you might go out, but you stayed behind and pretended to work. I remembered when I started having the nightmares, I did everything I could to avoid going to sleep. So, is that why you don't want to go home?"

Emily sighed. "No. It isn't that."

"Then it must be the conversation you had with Rossi on the plane."

"How do you know what we said? You were reading your comic book."

"I read your files while asking you out for coffee, Emily, don't you think I can read a comic book and listen to people talking a few feet away from me?"

"I hate you."

"So, it is what you and Rossi were talking about. About John McHale."

"Yeah."

"Except he's not the one you're worried about."

"I thought we weren't supposed to profile each other."

"This is different."

"Why?"

For the first time since they left the offices, Reid hesitated.

"I uh...I'm trying to make amends."

"Amends?"

"I ...owe you. I've not always been nice to you. And then you were so nice to me, about Gideon."

"I was just being a friend."

"And so am I. You're afraid you could be an unsub."

"Maybe."

"I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"You don't know that. How can any of us know?"

"You know, when I first had the nightmare, when it got bad enough, I told Morgan."

"Yeah?"

"And Morgan told Gideon."

"How did that go?"

"Well, first I was mad at Morgan. But I thought about what Gideon said, and I think it might be relevant to your concern."

"What did he say?"

"He said the difference between me and the unsubs was I cared about people. He said that was a strength, not a weakness."

"Johnny cared about people."

"He cared about his fiance. You care about people. Even with everything you've seen, you're still kind, even to people who haven't been kind to you. You could never bring yourself to do things to people unsubs do. You may not believe it about yourself, but I do. I don't know if that means anything to you. But I thought you should know."

Emily was quiet. He talked about her kindness despite the things she had seen. It occurred to her that his kindness was equally remarkable. She smiled at him and said," It means a lot to me." She looked concerned. "I got coffee on you."

He shrugged. "It's no big deal."

"It is. Come on, let's go to my place. We can get your shirt cleaned up."

"It's no problem."

"Spencer, please, let me."

He smiled. Sure. Why not?"

* * *

When they got to her place, she told Reid to take off his shirt.

"Why?"

"So I can clean it."

"It's fine, see you can't tell anything spilled on it."

"Come on Reid, just take it off. if you're feeling shy just change in the bathroom. You have your go bag with you, right?"

"Emily, it's fine, really."

"Come on Reid, it won't take long."

"It's fine."

She was starting to get annoyed and grabbed him by his shirt. "Why are you being stubborn about this?"

"Why are you?"

For weeks afterwords, Emily would swear what happened next was Reid's fault. All she had in mind was cleaning his shirt when she invited him to her place. For some reason, however, her reaction to his question was to kiss him.

She pulled him towards and just started kissing him, a long, hard, deep kiss. It should be noted that for his part, Dr. Reid didn't fight her. He was just as much an active participant in the kiss as she was. When the kiss ended, Reid asked,"What you doing?"

She raised both her eyebrows and said,"What, a genius profiler like you doesn't recognize a woman making sexual advances?"

To her great surprise, she realized that was exactly what she was doing. It wasn't her intention when she invited Reid to her place. Now that he was here, however..."

"I...uh,"Reid said," I recognize it I just don't understand it. I mean, is this just your coping mechanism?"

"If sex was my coping mechanism, I wouldn't have been the office, staring at files. I would have gone to the nearest bar picked up a random stranger."

"Then I don't understand why..."

"Do I reasons? All right Dr. Reid, I'll give you reasons."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "One, you were very nice and sensitive to me, trying to make me feel better. That's the kind of behavior that should be encouraged, don't you think?"

Without waiting for his response, she kisses him again, closer to his mouth this time. "Two, I find you attractive. I know you don't think you're handsome, but I do." The way she smiled while she said it and the steady, sultry tone of her voice made him think she was being sincere.

"Three," she said as she lightly kissed his lips,"is your hands. " As she spoke she took his hand in hers, interweaving her fingers into his. "They're such long, thin, lovely hands. I bet they could all sorts of things to me. Plus, the size of your hands is supposed to be proportional to...you know what I mean."

"My penis?"

She smiled. "Yes. And size does matter. It's not the end-all and be-all, but it is a consideration. And I'm just curious how big you are." She kissed him again, full on the mouth. "And fourth,..."

"Emily," he said. "I get it."

"Do you?" She said.

In answer, he kissed her full on the mouth. Then, as she thought, his hands were quite skillful at removing her shirt and bra. That lead to activities that, among other things, lead to become intimately aware of the exact size of all his body parts.

* * *

A few hours later they were in Emily's bed, both quite naked. Emily's head was laying on Reid's chest. They had just finished a little while ago and they had settled into silence.

Reid broke the silence,"Uh, Emily, I have to confess something."

"Oh?"

"I'm not really experienced at this."

"At sex? I have absolutely no complaints, if that's what you're worried about."

"It's not that its...I'm sure what I sure do next. I mean, I gather most the time after having sex most men try to leave as soon as possible."

"Do you want to leave?" she asked.

"Not really, no."

She smiled warmly and said,"Then I wouldn't," as she snuggled up against him.

"I mean, what happens next?"

"I don't know. I really didn't plan for any of this, it just happened. It felt right. Didn't it feel right to you?"

"It did. It's just..."

"Don't think about what happen next. You and I both know there's know way to know what could happen next. So let's just enjoy what's happening now. Ok?"

He smiled. "OK."


	2. A Higher Power

_Disclaimer: as always, I own nothing, no copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N: __As always, I want to thank everyone who has reviewed, made this story a favorite & subscribed to this story. This chapter picks up after the episode "Higher Power"_

* * *

Emily Prentiss felt guilty. More specifically, she felt guilty about how she had been treating Spencer Reid lately. It wasn't that she was being mean it's just she wasn't treating him any differently than she did before their one-night stand. In her defense, he wasn't treating her any differently either. It was almost as if it hadn't happened.

She should have called him or talked to him about it or something, but she never did. The problem was the longer the silence went on, the harder it seemed to her to say anything about it. Then they had the case in Pittsburgh.

It was a difficult case, and at the beginning it didn't even seem that there was an unsub. The only true empirical fact was a significant spike in suicides in the aftermath of a community center burning down. It was a terrible tragedy, but one detective thought there was something suspicious. During the course of the investigation, it became clear that there was an unsub who was killing people and making it look like suicide.

One of the reasons they looked like suicides was there were suicide notes that were in the victims handwriting. At least, it appeared they were suicide notes. After studying them for a while, Reid came to a different conclusion.

"I think they're amends."

"Amends?" Emily asked.

"Some...support groups have their members write out amends."

The pause was palpable and telling, at least it was to Emily. Reid talked about self-help and grief groups, but there was something in his tone that made Emily think he was deliberately leaving a category of support groups out.

He made no mention of 12-steps groups, but Emily knew, absolutely knew, he had more than just a passing familiarity with them. In that moment her guilt overwhelmed her. Not only had she not sought him out after their one night stand, she never asked him how he was doing. They all knew he struggled with drug addiction, they all knew why, and yet not single one of them tried to help him.

She, even more the rest of them, should have.

That's why once the case was over, and they were all back in the office, she was determined to talk to Reid. She would stop being a bad friend. She wouldn't leave until he did and she would talk to him, more importantly listen to him. She would be there for him, the same way he was there for her so many weeks ago.

So it was that she pretended to be working on paperwork at her desk until she saw him pack his stuff up at his desk. She managed to be standing next to him while he was waiting for the elevator. They were the only two that got in the elevator. POnce the doors closed she said,"You know, if you ever needed to talk about ...well ...anything, you know you can call me, right? I mean, absolutely any time."

"Okay, sure."

"Good."

They were both quiet for a moment.

"I'm not just saying it," she said," I really mean it."

"Does this have anything to do with our one-weekend stand?"

"One weekend?"

"Well, it wasn't really a one-night stand. I mean, I was at your place all weekend. I'm not complaining, but you couldn't call it a one-night stand is all."

"Oh. I never thought about it like that. I guess."

They were both quiet again.

"It's not," she said. "Not about that weekend, I mean. It's just, I was thinking. During this case, that maybe you might have times you might want or need to talk about things. I just wanted you to know that I've here for you, anytime. Absolutely anytime at all, I mean."

"Like now?"

"Right. If you want to talk, I'm here for you."

Without any warning at, Reid started kissing her. Before she knew it, they were making out like teenagers.

_It's not fair that he's such a good kisser_, Emily thought. _I'm not trying to get laid tonight. I'm not really._

When they broke off kissing that's what she told him. Well, that's what she meant to tell him. What she actually said was,"I'm not trying to...not tonight, anyway."

"Are you saying you don't want to again."

"Well, I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea but..."

"Good." Then he kissed her again.

Somehow they ended up at his apartment. Like before, it wasn't long before their clothes came off and then they ended up in bed. It seemed to Emily that the sex was better than before. It starte slow, sensual, and tender. Then, at least fora while, it become, hot, heavy, and frenzied. Then it slowed down again, almost completely stopping as they both climaxed. Then, without either of them saying a word, it began again.

When it all finally subsided, she lay with her head on his chest. "I wasn't trying to get laid tonight," she said softly. "I'm not complaining, but I really just wanted to tell if you ever needed to talk."

"Why do you think I needed to talk?"

"Well, in Pittsburgh..."

"What about it?"

"When you were talking about amends and support groups..."

"Yeah?"

"I got the feeling there was something you thought about saying. Maybe you had an experience with them?"

"What kind of experience?"

"There's something we never talk about, any of us I mean."

"No, I don't."

"Dialud. Tobias Henkel."

"Ah."

"I'm not saying I think you're using, but I just...We both know recovery from a addiction isn't a once and done thing. It's easy for the rest of us to forget what you have to struggle with. It isn't fair to you."

"You feel guilty about it?"

"Yes."

"Hotch never reported me. That was a gift. No one did, even when I was on a case and ignored my phone. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"Well, I do. About that and ..."

"And not calling after that weekend?"

"Right."

"You don't anything to feel guilty about, on either thing."

"Well, I do."

"You're really very sweet."

"I'm not, you know."

"Yes you are, you just don't think so."

"Well..."

He kissed her, interrupting what she was going to say.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm fine. And no matter what you feel, you have nothing to feel guilty about."

Emily didn't say anything, she just kissed him.


End file.
